John Saul: Darkness

Then, a few years back, some people from California had begun quietly buying up large tracts of land to the north, outside of Orlando, and when their work was done, Disney World had emerged out of the marshlands. Suddenly the whole area began to thrive, and it wasn’t long before Phil Stubbs, who had been eking out his living for thirty years by guiding adventurous — and very occasional — tourists through the swamp in his single leaky scow, had been able to buy a new boat, and then another and another.

Carl Anderson had taken one look at what was going on around Orlando, and seen that the boom would move southward. Acting quickly, he’d taken on partners and bought options on as much swampland as he could get. During the last five years he had begun exercising those options, draining the land and developing it into retirement communities. He’d started with a few small houses, but quickly expanded into condominiums. Already, a whole system of canals had been built, and even the smallest of his developments had tiny marinas attached to them. The larger developments allowed for private docks in front of rambling Florida-style houses, and the newest, his pride and joy, would include a golf course as well. As he’d expected, he had no trouble selling the developments — the weather was perfect for the retirement crowd, and a home in Villejeune all but guaranteed the buyers regular visits from their children and grandchildren. The fact that the kids had come to see Disney World rather than their aging relatives was beside the point. The point was that they came, and Villejeune was both close enough to Orlando to make the drive there easy and far enough away so it was still uncrowded and had a sense of its own identity. Carl wasn’t certain how long that would last, but in the meantime everyone was making money for the first time in decades. Most of all, Carl Anderson.

Even the village, after its centuries of somnolence, was beginning to change. The buildings were being repaired and fresh paint applied to ancient cypress siding. Some new buildings had appeared, but Carl, as chairman of the Villejeune Preservation Committee, had seen to it that the new architecture matched what was already there, so by the time a new shop opened its doors, it appeared to have been there just as long as everything else. Indeed. Carl himself had come up with the idea of building these commercial structures with slightly sagging floors, so that despite their newness, they were all a little out of plumb, just as were their older counterparts.

Ted and Mary, Carl decided as he drove slowly along Ponce Avenue, were going to be surprised by what they found. Then, as Carl spotted Judd Duval lounging in front of Arlette Delong’s café, his mood soured. Judd might be a deputy sheriff now, but as far as Carl was concerned, he was still nothing more than a swamp rat. And Carl Anderson didn’t like swamp rats.

But that, Carl supposed, would never change. As long as there was a swamp next to the town, the swamp rats would be there too, appearing in the village every now and then, buying a few supplies, then disappearing back into the marshlands, to the crumbling stilted shacks in which they lived. Judd nodded to Carl as he passed, and Carl automatically nodded back, despite his dislike of the man.

A few minutes later the village was half a mile behind him, and as he pulled the truck into the parking lot of the small clinic that had been built only last year, Carl was relieved to see that Warren Phillips’s Buick was there, even though it was Saturday. He parked the truck, wincing as he swung himself out of the cab. When he stepped into the receiving room a moment later, Jolene Mayhew raised one heavily plucked eyebrow. “Looks to me like you’re here to see Dr. P,” she observed. “Did you do something to yourself, or are you just getting old?”

Carl grinned at the nurse. “Come on, Jolene — don’t you read my ads? No one gets old in Villejeune. That’s why everyone’s moving here. It’s the weather.”

“Right,” the nurse replied archly. “Almost a hundred, with humidity to match. And we’re barely into June. Gonna be some summer.” She glanced down at the calendar on her desk. “Did you make an appointment?”

“Do I need one?” Carl peered exaggeratedly around the empty waiting room. “Doesn’t look like you’re doing what I’d call turn-away business. Maybe you should just close up shop and run away to Acapulco with me.”

“And maybe you should act your age.” Jolene tipped her head toward the closed door to Warren Phillips’s office. “Go on in. He was supposed to take the day off, but you know him. Anybody needs a doctor around here, they always know where to find Dr. P.”

Fifteen minutes later Phillips finished his examination of Carl. “Anything else, besides the hip?” he asked.

Carl, sitting up on the examining table, shook his head. “Feeling fine, just like always. Then this morning the thing started acting up on me.” He watched as Phillips prepared a hypodermic, then stretched out and rolled over on his side. “Last thing I need right now is a bum hip. Ted’s coming home and—” He winced as the needle slid into his hip, then rubbed at the sore spot when Phillips pulled the needle out a moment later. “Jesus. That felt like it went right into the bone.”

Phillips grinned. “It almost did. Cortisone. The hip should be fine in a day or so. Now, what’s this about Ted coming home? I thought Mary hated this place.”

Briefly, Carl explained what had happened. Phillips shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what goes on with kids these days.”

“Well, if you ask me, it’s not too hard to figure out,” Carl replied as he pulled his pants up and fastened his belt. “The whole world’s just gotten too complicated, and the kids get scared. But there’s nowhere to run away to anymore, so they kill themselves.”

Phillips looked doubtful. “You think that’s what happened to your granddaughter? She got scared?”

Carl chuckled darkly. “Oh, I s’pose the doctors in Atlanta have a lot of fancy names for it, but when you get right down to it, I think she’ll be just fine once she gets down here.”

Phillips’s frown deepened. “I wish I agreed with you.”

Now it was Carl Anderson who looked uncertain.

“You think I shouldn’t have told Ted to bring her down here?”

The doctor shrugged. “It’s hardly for me to say what Ted should or shouldn’t do. But it seems to me that there’s not much for Kelly to do around here.”

“Maybe she’s had too damned much to do in Atlanta,” Carl growled. “You don’t notice any of our kids killing themselves.”

Phillips sighed. “There aren’t that many around at all anymore, are there?” he countered. “This whole town’s turning into a retirement center.”

“Well, you can’t blame the young folks for moving away. What were they supposed to do? The whole place was dying.” He glanced at his watch, then grinned. “Well, not anymore. Can you believe me living my life by my wristwatch? Ten years ago, I was lucky to have anything to do at all. Now there’s barely enough time to keep up. Speaking of which,” he added, “I’m due for my regular shot tomorrow. Any reason not to have it right now?”

Phillips shrugged. “None at all.” He turned back to his cabinet, picked up a small vial, and filled a second needle. A moment later he slipped it under the skin of Carl’s forearm and pressed the plunger. “That’s it,” he said as he pulled the needle out and dropped it into the wastebasket. “That should keep you on schedule for a while.”

As he left the clinic a few minutes later, the pain in his hip was already beginning to recede, and the vitamin shot — the one he’d been taking regularly for years now — was making him feel ten years younger.